


Time

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-24
Updated: 2009-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:36:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello might have been young, back then, but he'd always been as bright as a button; either way, now he's come home, and he's no longer a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of a gift for [Recipe For Insanity](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1405691/recipe_for_insanity).
> 
> Massive thanks go out to my LiveJournal f-list for being the most amazing cheer-squad ever. And to Melissa Ferrick's music, heheh, seeing as I listened to it on obsessive loop whilst I was writing this thing.
> 
> Finally, Zeda-chan beautifully illustrated a scene from this story for me; it's the most gorgeous thing ever, and you can see it [here](http://blk-kitti.deviantart.com/art/L-Mello-Midnight-Talks-113785983) at her deviantART account. ♥
> 
> Spoilers for real names. Unbeta'd.

Hands on hips.

Mello's hands on Mello's hips, standing there, framed in the evening light, on the front steps of the orphanage, dressed like a cheap biker's whore, an elusive smile lurking around his eyes as he sees L's gaze rest upon him.

L's hands on L's hips, fumbling at the pockets of his baggy jeans, in an effort to keep himself grounded, as his mind struggles out of its usual patterns and seeks desperately for a new path towards sensible thoughts... *

Midnight conversations, that was what L had always called them, in the privacy of his own mind. Midnight conversations, and heart-to-hearts, perhaps. The boy might have been young, back then (L had tried not to think about it overly much), but he had always been as bright as a button; so alive, and so driven, and so full of questions – so much more so than even Near, or the others – and the words had simply sparked between them like little curls of candlelight. L had wondered, of course, just how much of it had been a simple need to complete, on Mello's behalf. That was a thought which had always rather frightened L; he'd been down that road before, and the ending was anything but pretty. In fact L had always been certain, at the very least, that that was exactly how it had all begun: a thirteen year-old boy determined to get one up on his classmates, and so sure that he'd found the sole way to beat them, the one thing which they would never have dreamt of.

And Mello had always known that he was beautiful.

He'd always known it and, perhaps, had been a touch vain of it but, most of all, he'd always been acutely conscious of exactly how his beauty could be used, as a tool, as a weapon, as a method to get exactly what he wanted.

L had turned him down, of course, that first time when Mello's fine hands had slid around L's neck, and had knotted themselves amongst his dark hair; that first time when Mello's lips had tilted upwards and met his. L had pretended that the warm, wet, slightly clumsy kiss had not hit him like an electric shock. He had pretended that it had left him indifferent, unaffected, when, in reality, it had made him long for nothing more than to grip that slender body and pull it in close against his own.

He hadn't.

He _wouldn't. _

But, if Mello had always been one thing, even more than he'd been beautiful, it was stubbornly persistent. And so the midnight conversations had been born.

Everyone knew that L worked late when he was at Wammy's, but it wouldn't have occurred to anyone else to interrupt him at 11:58 p.m. with a soft knock on the door. It wouldn't have occurred to them to stand there with a plate of cake, or cookies, or steaming cups of tea, clearly taken illicitly from the kitchen. It wouldn't have occurred to them, because they simply never would have presumed that it was their born right to be let into L's room; would never have presumed that it was their right to curl up on L's reading chair, near the fire, between his desk and his bed. Mello had presumed it, and, furthermore, he'd _expected_ it. He had always believed in his right to L, and he had also always believed in his right to L's personal space, and, therefore, L had always let him in. The boy would curl like a cat in that chair, and L would leave his laptop, and sit on a rug by the fire, and they'd just talk. Just... talk. Talk about so many things.

Sometimes Mello had drifted off to sleep there, sometimes L had sent him back to his own room and, sometimes, just sometimes, Mello had leant down from the chair, and offered up sleepy kisses.

Sometimes, L had accepted them.

As time passed, Mello had watched the Kira case unfold, from a distance. He'd seen what it had done to L's psyche when he'd been _right right right_ about Raito Yagami. (L wondered whether Mello had ever suspected exactly what it was that Raito had been to him? Whether he had guessed that they'd been lovers? Whether he had ever dreamt, even once, that it was the ease of conversation, those bright eyes, that sharpness of intellect, which had led him into his suspect's bed; that it was those things, which had reminded him so much of Mello, though he could barely have admitted it to himself...?). And Mello had waited, biding his time at the orphanage school until he was sixteen, and then he'd headed off to America, and done God-only-knew-what with the Mafia. L had kept him loosely monitored, of course, just to make sure that he didn't end up a lovely-but-nameless body in a back alley, but he had stayed out of the boy's business; it was typical for almost all of Wammy's children to break away at some point or other. Mello had been successful, too.

Until he'd left, though, the kisses had always been there between them, the kisses and all they had promised and, even after they'd found themselves on different continents, the promises had remained (_I'm yours, I'm yours, you've always known it_).

And now the Kira case is over.

The Kira case has been over for quite some time, and L has finished his mourning for justice-served-correctly, and the world has kept spinning, and time has wound its way through the parklands around the orphanage, and Mello has returned to Wammy's House. He still has slender hips (encased in leather, making a point, catching L's eyes, fixating his mind), but he's not a child any more. He's not a child, he's almost twenty, and he moves like a man.

*

The door to Mello's old bedroom, when L reaches it, is spilling a sliver of honey-coloured light between itself and the polished floorboards of the hallway. L comes to a halt before it, his toes bare in the slight glow, and chews at his thumb. He wants to knock, he doesn't want to knock_. _He tells himself that he should go back to his own room, that he should wait and see if Mello will come to him, see if Mello will come to him like he did when he was young and soft and fragile. But, on the other hand, he doesn't want to wait, _he wants to see him now_, just the two of them and nobody else watching, he wants... he wants to hear him speak, wants to ask if he can touch him, wants...

L gnaws at the nail of this thumb and hates what this has reduced him to. A bar of chocolate – a gift, a bribe, a hope – hangs heavy in his other hand. God, he wants, he wants, but he can't, he can't, because he still has his pride, and the walls in his mind, and―

The bedroom door opens, and Mello stands there in a gleam of lamplight, thrown from the beside table, dressed in frayed jeans and a black t-shirt, his hair pulled away from his face and captured in a loose ponytail.

"You came," he says, and his face breaks into a smile that shears away at least three years from his age, and makes L's heart skip a beat, all at the same time.

L wants to say, _of course I came, how could I stay away when there was even a fraction of doubt that you might not come to me?_ He wants to say, _it took all my self control __not to jump you at the dinner table, and stick my tongue in your mouth, to see if you still taste the same as you did when you were a boy. _He wants to say, _I'm scared, because I think I might love you, but I don't truly believe that someone like you could love someone like me..._

He does say, "Yes."

Mello studies his face for a long moment, then nods once, opens the door wider, and motions L to come on in.

The bedroom is startlingly bare, and there's a cardboard box beside the simple wooden desk, and a suitcase open on the floor near the end of the bed.

"All my old crap," explains Mello, when L glances curiously at the box. "It's high time someone put my childhood away; this room looks just like it did the day I left."

"Of course it does," replies L slowly, and then stands awkwardly in the centre of the room while Mello shuts the door behind them.

The light from the bedside lamp is pale and plays beautifully across the younger man's face. L would ask him how he got the scar, but that he already knows; he doesn't know how it feels, though, and so he buries his free hand deeper in his jeans pocket to save himself from the urge to find out via practical investigation.

"You... knew I'd come back?'

"I..." L pauses. "I had hoped Mello would return, yes."

_If he comes back_, L had told himself, _then it will all have meant what Mello claimed it had meant, and I will be allowed to..._

The younger man's face grows still, but then he seems to relax somehow, as though he's been searching for something in L's expression, and has now found exactly that which he needed to see.

"You missed me," he whispers, and it's only partly a question. He takes the chocolate from L's hand, raises it to his face and inhales the scent of it appreciatively, but then places it in the middle of the bare desk and turns his attention back on the detective.

"Yes," says L again. He tries to find the right words, but realises that there's an 89% chance that they're going to come out wrong if he attempts to enunciate them.

"You don't have to say it," grins Mello, his eyes suddenly bright and wide and knowing. He takes a step, away from the chocolate and towards L, and gazes up at the older man. The blond is all eyes and expectations, and L wonders why it's just the same as it always was, and yet so much more intense, as though the underlying Mello-ness has hooked him in, but the stronger set to the bones in the boy's – man's – face, and the permission it gives him, has caught him unawares.

"L..." Mello says softly, and places one slender-fingered hand flat upon the centre of L's chest, as if to better hear his heart beat. "Please. This is what I came back for. I'm not a child anymore, show me... show me I wasn't wrong."

The curtains murmur at the window.

Something inside of L crumbles at the touch of Mello's hand, at the tone of Mello's voice; he reaches out, strokes Mello's face, Mello's scar, Mello's hair, the dip of Mello's neck where it meets Mello's cotton-clad leans in towards the blond, just that little distance, and accepts the kiss that Mello's lips are offering him. Three years, and two trips across an ocean, make a dramatic difference and, when they part, L can barely breathe – his eyes wide, his face flushed. He's been educated in these things too, in the time they've spent so far apart, taught by the skilful hands of his condemned Kira, but Mello – Mello must have earnt himself a degree in the arts of seduction because the things his mouth can do are―

L's mind lets go of percentages and realities and slow, cautious calculations. L's mind breaks down the wall which he had constructed, so long ago, when a thirteen year-old boy had climbed onto his lap and kissed him. L's mind breaks down that wall into a pile of dusty rubble, and his hands tighten upon Mello's body, sliding around to the younger man's back, down, up again, beneath the dark material of his t-shirt, so much warm/hot/smooth skin to touch. Mello mumbles something which dies mid-vowel and is reincarnated as a throaty moan, as L's fingers grasp at the blond's jeans-covered hips and pull him closer, closer, even as L himself moves forwards. Mello just nods as the mattress of his old bed hits at the back of his knees, making him buckle slightly, only L holding him up, and then he leans backwards, using his weight to fall against the single bed, and drag L down with him.

"Yes," he says, and bite-kisses at L's neck. "Yes, you, I always wanted, you."

_You've always wanted to _be_ me,_ L's subconscious corrects automatically, and perhaps his face is easier to read than he's always imagined, because Mello pushes against him, his brows drawn down towards his eyes, his bare chest heaving as L's fingers (which appear to have developed sentience of their own, and isn't that strange) push his t-shirt up higher and higher and make the discovery of ribs to count and brown-pink nipples to tease. Mello studies L's face for a second, then pushes again, and harder, rolls the detective over, and straddles him. "I want _you_," he repeats almost-angrily. "It took me a while to get that sorted myself, granted, but it's the truth. I don't want to be you, I'm not BB or Near or any of them. I'm just me, and you're you, and I want you to want..."

L stares up at him. He wants to believe, cannot believe, yet cannot help _but _to believe, with that feverish, earnest gaze upon him, and Mello's hands stroking along his torso. "Me?" L asks, and his voice rings with doubt.

"You're beautiful," Mello confesses, leaning downwards and in, and whispering his lips against L's right clavicle, which is peeping above the neckline of his worn, white t-shirt, and therefore demanding to be kissed.

Raito had said L was beautiful, as well, but Raito had been a liar, and Raito had used him.

...but L had used Raito too, hadn't he?

"Time," says L, in a pleading voice, his hands tightening against Mello's waist. _I still need time to believe._

Mello nods again, his hair brushing against L's face, and then smirks against L's skin. "Time, then," he murmurs, "to get these bloody clothes of yours off. Christ, but I've waited too many years, fucking _move_ already_, _Lawliet." And he flexes his thighs against the body of the man beneath him, and slides roughly backwards, pressing against L's crotch, so that the detective's breath catches yet again, and his cock perks up.

L has a brief moment in which to stare and ask, "My name, how...?", and Mello mouths something about _best friends, hackers, _and _Wammy's computer network_, before L decides that he really doesn't care right in this minute anyway, and obliges Mello's hands' demands that he undress. Sitting up, with Mello now in his lap, L takes off his own shirt rapidly, then avails Mello of the same service, before letting Mello's fingers work at the zipper of his baggy blue jeans. The young man pushes L down onto his back again, and removes his jeans, and his boxers with them, in what is apparently one swift movement. Mello must have taken off his own jeans at some point (L marvels vaguely at his multi-tasking abilities) because, the next thing L knows, they're bare-skinned against each other.

God, but it feels so right.

"You," repeats Mello. "I want..."

His rosary digs into L's chest as they rub against each other, full of need.

He slides down L's body.

And takes L's cock in his mouth.

The detective's back arches and his hands bind themselves amongst the blond's hair, before he even knows what he's doing, his body thinking for itself now and leaving his brain behind. It's not like with Raito – no double meanings, no second guessing – because this is Mello, and L knows Mello's mind, and Mello knows L's, as well as anyone can know the mind of another, and there's nothing between them but the agility of Mello's tongue, and the taut skin of L's body, and their hands, and their touch, and the way it feels, feels, feels...

Mello takes L to the edge of the precipice and then pulls away again, kissing a path, with lips damp from saliva and pre-cum, in a return journey up L's body; kissing his way to L's mouth. L doesn't know whether to moan with frustration, or to be pleased that the w torment is going to last longer, and then, either way, Mello is looking at him with the hungriest bedroom eyes L has ever seen, and is whispering in his ear, breath hot and hard and heavy, "Would you... will you... in...?"

L knows exactly what Mello means, but the tube of K-Y, and the little plastic packet, which Mello seems to have miraculously summoned up from somewhere, provide surplus illustration, and L groans at the thought.

He knows how this is done. He's done this before. But, as he rises to his knees and looks at the young man beneath him – as he rises to his knees and smoothes on the condom, and the lube over it – as he takes Mello's hips in his hands and places a pillow beneath his lower back, it's almost as if this were the first time L's ever done such a thing. He trembles when he slides a slicked finger inside the blond.

Mello's face tells him that he's done this before, too, though, and they relax against each other at the knowledge that there are no virgins in this room, only when it comes to each other. L's finger slides deeper, and is joined by another, making room as Mello's lips curve into a smile, and his hips push against L's welcome intrusion. When L takes the fingers away and slides home himself, those beautiful hips surge forwards against him after only a moment's hesitation, and Mello's eyes widen, and close, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks as the two of them rock and shake against each other, then find a give-take-give beat, a rhythm which rolls from one to the other, where their bodies are joined. Mello's hands clutch at the bed, and at L, and at the bed again, crushing the bedspread and leaving purplish marks on L's skin. L's hands are spread on either side of Mello, heels of his palms digging towards the mattress and holding him up, and then there's only one of them there, his other curving into place around Mello's cock, so proud in L's hand as it strains against him. Their bodies press and demand and whisper, finding a new way to see the world, until even that passes out of existence and there's nothing but white warmth, and mislaid breathes, and L-Mello-L-Mello-L-Mello,

and

then god

_come._

Together, they ride the wave into a boneless muddle of bare skin and stickiness, panting and pausing and petting, until L withdraws from Mello, moves his body enough to stumble, legless, from the bed, and dispose of the condom, then stumbles back again, and he's barely even aware of having done it, recognises only his need to return to those waiting arms, to that flushed face with the sweaty blond strands stuck to its forehead, to those lips open and still eager to sign their possession against his own. L settles down onto the narrow bed, and curls in against the younger man, their hands running up and down each other's bodies like underwater somnambulants, like dreamers, like wanderers come home after almost too long, but just long enough.

*

L's hands find safe harbour against Mello's hips, and Mello's mouth finds sanctuary against L's neck, and time, they both think, in sleepy patterns, doesn't matter much after all. They have as much of it as they could possibly desire, for L to learn to believe.

And the touch of their bodies already says _I love you_.

But then, it always has.


End file.
